House of Wittelsbach

Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles VII was the Prince-elector of Bavaria from 1726 and Holy Roman Emperor from 24 January 1742 until his death in 1745. A member of the House of Wittelsbach, Charles was the first person not born of the House of Habsburg to become emperor in three centuries, though he was connected to that house both by blood and by marriage.

Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria

Maximilian II, also known as Max Emanuel or Maximilian Emanuel, was a Wittelsbach ruler of Bavaria and a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire. He was also the last governor of the Spanish Netherlands and duke of Luxembourg. An able soldier, his ambition led to conflicts that limited his ultimate dynastic achievements.

Ludwig I of Bavaria

Ludwig I was king of Bavaria from 1825 until the 1848 revolutions in the German states.

Maximilian I of Mexico

Maximilian I was the only monarch of the Second Mexican Empire. He was a younger brother of the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I. After a distinguished career in the Austrian Navy as its commander, he accepted an offer by Napoleon III of France to rule Mexico, conditional on a national plebiscite in his favour. France invaded the Mexican Republic in the winter of 1861, as part of the War of the French Intervention. Seeking to legitimize French rule in the Americas, Napoleon III invited Maximilian to establish a new pro-French Mexican monarchy. With the support of the French army and a group of conservative Mexican monarchists hostile to the liberal administration of the new Mexican president, Benito Juárez, Maximilian traveled to Mexico and declared himself Emperor of Mexico on 10 April 1864.

Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

Maximilian I Joseph was Duke of Zweibrücken from 1795 to 1799, prince-elector of Bavaria from 1799 to 1806, then King of Bavaria from 1806 to 1825. He was a member of the House of Palatinate-Birkenfeld-Zweibrücken, a branch of the House of Wittelsbach.

Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria

Maximilian I, occasionally called "the Great", a member of the House of Wittelsbach, ruled as Duke of Bavaria from 1597. His reign was marked by the Thirty Years' War during which he obtained the title of a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire at the 1623 Diet of Regensburg.

Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria

Ferdinand Maria was a Wittelsbach ruler of Bavaria and an elector (Kurfürst) of the Holy Roman Empire from 1651 to 1679.

King of Bavaria

King of Bavaria was a title held by the hereditary Wittelsbach rulers of Bavaria in the state known as the Kingdom of Bavaria from 1805 until 1918, when the kingdom was abolished. It was the second kingdom, almost a thousand years after the short-lived Carolingian kingdom of Bavaria.

Maximilian III Joseph, Elector of Bavaria

Maximilian III Joseph was a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire and Duke of Bavaria from 1745 to 1777.

Bavarian Crown Jewels

The Bavarian Crown Jewels are a set of crown jewels created for the Kingdom of Bavaria, which existed from 1806 to 1918. In 1806, as part of his wholescale re-ordering of the map of Europe, Emperor Napoléon I of the French upgraded the independent German duchy of Bavaria to full kingdom status. The former Duke of Bavaria, now King of Bavaria, Maximilian I, commemorated the fact by commissioning a set of crown jewels for use by Bavarian monarchs. However, there was no coronation ceremony, and the king never wore the crown in public. Rather, it was placed on a cushion when displayed on occasions such as the king's ascension or his funeral.

Albert V, Duke of Bavaria

Albert V was Duke of Bavaria from 1550 until his death. He was born in Munich to William IV and Maria Jacobäa of Baden.

Munich Residenz

The Residenz in central Munich is the former royal palace of the Wittelsbach monarchs of Bavaria. The Residenz is the largest city palace in Germany and is today open to visitors for its architecture, room decorations, and displays from the former royal collections.

Kingdom of Bavaria

The Kingdom of Bavaria was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918. The Bavarian Elector Maximilian IV Joseph of the House of Wittelsbach became the first King of Bavaria in 1805 as Maximilian I Joseph. The crown would go on being held by the Wittelsbachs until the kingdom came to an end in 1918. Most of Bavaria's present-day borders were established after 1814 with the Treaty of Paris, in which Bavaria ceded Tyrol and Vorarlberg to the Austrian Empire while receiving Aschaffenburg and Würzburg. With the unification of Germany into the German Empire in 1871, the kingdom became a federal state of the new Empire and was second in size, power, and wealth only to the leading state, the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1918, Bavaria became a republic, and the kingdom was thus succeeded by the current Free State of Bavaria.

Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy

Henriette Adelaide of Savoy, was Electress of Bavaria by marriage to Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria. She had much political influence in her adopted country and with her husband did much to improve the welfare of the Electorate of Bavaria.

Electorate of Bavaria

The Electorate of Bavaria was an independent hereditary electorate of the Holy Roman Empire from 1623 to 1806, when it was succeeded by the Kingdom of Bavaria.